The Berlin attack and Ankara assassination underscore the global tinderbox President-elect Donald Trump is set to inherit, and his response suggests his White House will take a sharply different approach to unexpected crises.

As America’s influence has shrunk in the Middle East, Russia has taken the place the U.S. long occupied in the minds of many in the region: an alien imperialist power seen as waging war on Muslims and Islam.

NEW YORK (AP) -- The late rapper Tupac Shakur and Seattle-based rockers Pearl Jam lead a class of Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees that also include folkie Joan Baez and 1970s favorites Journey, Yes and Electric Light Orchestra....

The happiest of seasons is also among the deadliest: Unintentional shootings spike during the holidays, and are more likely to occur than any other time of the year, according to an analysis by The Associated Press and the USA TODAY Network....

According to initial reports, in an incident similar to Monday's terror attack in Berlin, a truck hit a crowd of people at a farmer's market in the Chinese capital on Wednesday evening (local time), leaving at least four people dead and dozens wounded. The driver was arrested and taken into custody.

The proliferation of a rapidly evolving synthetic opioids has become so fierce that the DEA says they now constitute an entire new class of illicit drugs, built to mimic the powerful painkiller fentanyl. (Dec. 21)

The Associated Press is the essential global news network, delivering fast, unbiased news from every corner of the world to all media platforms and formats.AP’s commitment to independent, comprehensive journalism has deep roots. Founded in 1846, AP has covered all the major news events of the past 165 years, providing high-quality, informed reporting of everything from wars and elections to championship games and royal weddings. AP is the largest and most trusted source of independent news and information.Today, AP employs the latest technology to collect and distribute content - we have daily uploads covering the latest and breaking news in the world of politics, sport and entertainment. Join us in a conversation about world events, the newsgathering process or whatever aspect of the news universe you find interesting or important. Subscribe: http://smarturl.it/AssociatedPress

A Donald Trump administration is expected to significantly shift U.S. policy on Israel. WSJ's Gerald F. Seib discusses the possible changes, including moving the American embassy to Jerusalem and support for Jewish settlements in the West Bank. Photo: Bloomberg

The FBI on Tuesday released the warrant it requested 10 days before the presidential election that allowed it to check whether there was classified information in e-mails between presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and her aide Huma Abedin on the computer of Anthony Weiner, Abedin's estranged husband. The 21-page document, from which only the names of FBI agents were blacked out, showed that a representative of the FBI asked the court to allow the search out of concern that Weiner's laptop computer might have contained thousands of classified e-mails that could have damaged national security. The computer, including a terabyte hard drive, was never approved for carrying, sending or receiving classified information. Investigators also searched for system files, logs, system codes, documents and database files on the computer. The unsealing of the warrant followed an appeal by an attorney from California and an order by a US district court.

Turkey's military said Wednesday morning that Turkish-backed Syrian rebel militias had taken full control of Syrian routes M4 and 212, the main roads connecting the cities of Al-Bab and Aleppo. It marked the latest development in the "Euphrates Shield" operation, Ankara's invasion of northern Syria that is aimed at removing both ISIS and Kurdish forces from Turkey's southern border. Ankara announced the operation on August 24.

Delays hampered the last evacuations of Syrian rebels and civilians from what is left of the opposition's enclave in Aleppo as its residents waited on Wednesday for the arrival of 20 U.N. observers meant to monitor the final exodus from the city.

Peaceful EU starts to fund military researchNature.comThe sum is dwarfed by the EU's major research-funding programme, Horizon 2020, which will hand out €80 billion over 7 years, the €8.8 billion spent by EU member states on defence research in 2014, and what the United States and probably China spend ...

US police more likely to kill black men, study findsTimes of MaltaIn the current study, Dr James Buehler in Philadelphia turned to death-certificate data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Blacks were 2.8 times more likely to be killed by police than whites, the study found. Hispanic men were 1.7 ...and more »

Islamic State militants in Mosul are deliberately targeting civilians who refuse to join them as they retreat ahead of advancing Iraqi forces involved in a large-scale government operation to retake the militant-held city, an international watchdog said on Wednesday.

On Dec. 26, 1991, the Soviet Union officially ceased to exist. Its flag, with its famous hammer and sickle, was lowered outside the Kremlin at 7:32 p.m. Within a half-hour, the red, white and blue Russian flag had been raised in its place.

BERLIN — The day after a truck plowed into a shopper-filled Christmas market, killing a dozen people and wounding dozens more, Germany continued to grapple with the aftermath: the shock of the attack, identifying the victims, tracking suspected links to Islamic terrorist groups, and debating whether the open-door asylum policy ...

MOSCOW — Explosive charges that Moscow intervened in the American presidential election to help Donald Trump win the White House may be causing upheaval in the United States, but in Russia they have had about as much impact as a snowflake striking the Kremlin.

Iran's brutal Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force has played an extensive role in the rape of Aleppo, building a network of bases around the Syrian city and directing militiamen from Lebanon, Iraq and Afghanistan to do the killing, an Iranian opposition group says in a new intelligence report.

Russia is not listed among President-elect Donald Trump’s “defense priorities” despite senior military officials warning that Moscow ranks as the No. 1 threat to America, according to an internal Defense Department memo.

Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Brian McKeon prepared the memo, dated Dec. 1, based off of communications with Mira Ricardel, a former Bush administration official and co-leader of Trump’s Pentagon transition team, Foreign Policyreported Tuesday.

McKeon wrote the president-elect’s staff had outlined four priorities for the incoming Trump administration that included the defeat of the Islamic State, the elimination of budget caps to help build up defense, the development of a “comprehensive” cyber strategy, and finding “greater efficiencies” in the Pentagon.

Evelyn Farkas, a former senior Pentagon official who worked on Russia policy, told FP that Defense Department officials “would be pretty concerned” to see Moscow missing from the list.

Top officials in the Pentagon and intelligence community have ranked Russia as the top threat to the U.S. for years given its “vast nuclear arsenal, sophisticated cyber capabilities, recently modernized military, and willingness to challenge the United States and its allies in the Middle East, Eastern Europe, and other regions,” according to FP.

Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, testified before Congress last year warning that Moscow posed the greatest existential threat to the U.S. Dunford, who will remain in his role under Trump, listed China, North Korea, and ISIS as the next biggest threats, in that order.

An unnamed Trump transition official told FP the memo was “not comprehensive.”

“For the media to speculate that this list of issues represents all of the president-elect’s priorities is completely erroneous and misleading,” the official said.

Trump has vowed to reset relations between the U.S. and Russia, often speaking favorably of President Vladimir Putin. The president-elect continues to deny the intelligence community’s conclusion that Moscow directed cyber attacks into U.S. political systems in an attempt to sway the presidential election.

The New York Times has published more than two-dozen articles about the “alt-right” and white nationalist movements since the November elections, an invaluable signal boost for the tiny coalition of racists.

The Times has published articles about an “energized” far-right for over a year, although it ramped up this publicity blitz in November after the election of Donald Trump and appointment of Breitbart News executive Stephen Bannon as presidential counselor.

The articles typically refer to the alt-right as an attractive and growing political force—valuable promotional copy for a movement that numbers in the “thousands,” as its leaders admit.

On November 1, the Timesprofiled a “prominent” white nationalist who recorded robocalls to attack independent conservative Evan McMullin and promote Donald Trump. He spent $2,000 total on the calls.

Five days later, the Timeswrote about how “Donald Trump’s [Alt-Right] Supporters Feel Like Winners.” The article described white nationalism as a “once obscure and now ascendant” force experiencing a “surge of interest” due to Trump.

It cited Jared Taylor, another “prominent” white nationalist, who said “traffic to his website, American Renaissance, was up 30 percent” during the election. American Renaissance did grow in popularity in 2016, although it was starting from a very low base. It is currently the 15,732nd most-trafficked website in the United States, according to Alexa.

Shortly after the election, the Timesreported that white nationalists were experiencing “an awakening” due to Donald Trump. The article noted that “hundreds” of white nationalists—as many as 270, by some counts—attended a conference by the racist National Policy Institute, where they celebrated “the unexpected march of their white nationalist ideas toward the mainstream.”

The Times printed exuberant predictions about the future of white nationalism by conference host Richard Spencer.

The New York Times has lavished Spencer with attention, mentioning him at least 11 times in the past two months. Often it has given him space to present his tiny movement as mainstream and normal.

“What you can’t say is that we’re just a bunch of marginal loons,” Spencer said on November 6.

“We’ve crossed the Rubicon in terms of recognition,” he said on November 20.

“My goal for the next five years is professionalization,” he said two days later. “That is the next step for the alt-right.”

Spencer is not the only alt-righter the Times has boosted in the past two months. It has mentioned internet troll Milo Yiannopoulos five times, profiled an alt-right social media platform, and introduced the world to Matthew Heimbach, who runs a miniscule fascist organization out of his trailer in Indiana. It also wrote that the 2016 election had “resurrected” O.G. racist David Duke, who ran for the Republican Party’s Senate nomination in Louisiana—and won 3.4 percent of the vote.

At times the paper has expressed an uneasy awareness that it is helping racists recruit

Before 2016, “the news media often debated whether to cover [the alt-right’s] sparsely attended rallies, considering that any attention might grant the groups a veneer of legitimacy,” the Timeswrote on December 10.

Now, as Democrats seize an opportunity to tie their partisan opponents to outright white nationalists, the media has fewer scruples about covering sparsely attended rallies.

White nationalists are quite pleased with this turn of events, as a Times op-ed pointed out.

“Groups such as Mr. Spencer’s, which had indeed rallied behind Mr. Trump, were delighted with the attention … While he does not consider either Mr. Trump or Mr. Bannon alt-right, Mr. Spencer has expressed hope that the press’s describing them as such will help his own group grow.”

Earlier tests took place May 24 and Nov. 18, 2015. Both tests were first reported by the Washington Free Beacon.

The high rate of testing is an indication the program is a military priority and is progressing toward deployment.

The new anti-satellite missile is among several new strategic weapons systems being developed by the Russian military.

The Nudol is viewed by the Pentagon as a so-called “direct ascent” anti-satellite missile. Russia, however, has sought to mask the missile’s anti-satellite capabilities by claiming the missile is for defense against incoming ballistic missiles.

The Pentagon is worried about the development of anti-satellite weapons by both Russia and China.

Gen. John Hyten, the commander of Air Force Space Command who was recently promoted to lead Strategic Command, has stated that Russia and China are building space warfare systems that are worrying. “They are developing capabilities that concern us,” Hyten has said.

In March, Air Force Lt. Gen. David J. Buck, commander of the Joint Functional Component Command for Space, revealed during House testimony that the Russian military is developing weapons with “counter-space capabilities.”

“Russia views U.S. dependency on space as an exploitable vulnerability, and they are taking deliberate actions to strengthen their counter-space capabilities,” Buck said.

Mark Schneider, a former Pentagon strategic arms policymaker, said the current asymmetry between the United States and other nations in anti-satellite capabilities “is of enormous significance.”

“Potentially, it could result in our defeat in a high intensity conflict,” Schneider said. “The complete loss of the GPS network, or its serious degradation, would eliminate the effectiveness of all existing long-range conventional strike cruise missiles and would degrade the functioning of many of our precision guided weapons.”

Anti-satellite missiles also could be used to knock out communications satellites. “We have begun to take some steps to reduce our reliance on GPS but this will not be near term,” Schneider said.

Michaela Dodge, a defense analyst at the Heritage Foundation, said the Russian test highlights the growing threat to space from new weapons.

“The test demonstrates the need for the United States to treat space as an increasingly contested environment where access might not be guaranteed as it has been in the past,” she said.

“It demonstrates the need to exercise scenarios in which U.S. military might not have a complete access to its complete utilization,” Dodge added. “The test also illustrates the need to protect and diversify U.S. space infrastructure.”

U.S. intelligence agencies have estimated that U.S. military operations could be severely disrupted with only two dozen or so anti-satellite attacks.

Satellites are used for precision navigation, targeting, and communications and intelligence gathering.

The Pentagon is very dependent on satellites for long-range warfare operations, an American military specialty.

Both Russia and China have recognized the strategic vulnerability of U.S. dependency on satellites. Anti-satellite missiles are regarded as important asymmetric warfare weapons.

Both China and Russia are developing lasers and other directed-energy weapons that can blind or disrupt satellites. Small satellites capable of maneuvering in space and grabbing and crushing satellites also are being developed.

Russian generals have mentioned their forces fielding anti-satellite capabilities in public statements, but with few details. For example, Russian Lt. Gen. Oleg Ostapenko, former commander of space forces, has said the S-500 anti-missile system is capable of hitting “low-orbit satellites and space weapons.”

In May, Vadim Kozyulin, a professor at the Academy of Military Sciences, was quoted as saying that discussion of “space kamikazes” suggests Moscow is preparing for a conflict in space with the United States.

The TASS news agency reported that the A-60, a variation of the IL-76 transport aircraft, has a laser anti-satellite capability.

In October, TASS reported that the Nudol is called the A-235 and is being developed to replace the current nuclear-tipped missile defense system ringing Moscow.

Missile defense interceptors share characteristics with space-faring satellite killers. Both travel at high rates of speed and require precision targeting and guidance.

The United States has no anti-satellite weapons. However, a Navy SM-3 anti-missile interceptor was modified to shoot down a de-orbiting intelligence satellite in 2008, indicating U.S. missile defenses could be used to target foreign satellites.

The Defense Intelligence Agency stated in a report to Congress last year that Russia leaders “openly assert that the Russian armed forces have anti-satellite weapons and conduct anti-satellite research.”

China conducted a flight test of its new anti-satellite missile in early December. Preparations for the test were first reported by the Free Beacon.

The missile was identified as a DN-3 direct ascent missile. That system, like the Russian Nudol, is being developed under cover as a missile-defense weapon.

China’s Defense Ministry said the Free Beacon report of test preparations for the DN-3 was “groundless.”

Police are more likely to kill black men, study findsReutersFBI Director James B. Comey also has lamented a dearth of statistics on police use of force. He told a gathering of police chiefs last year that “Americans actually have no idea . . . whether black people or brown people are more likely to be shot ...and more »